


Remembrance

by ShadowHaloedAngel



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Character Study, Introspection, Other, Remembrance Day, poppies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-11
Updated: 2012-11-11
Packaged: 2017-11-18 11:05:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/560349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowHaloedAngel/pseuds/ShadowHaloedAngel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is one day of the year when Steve Rogers puts his foot down and insists his team get the respect they deserve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remembrance

_They shall grow not old_

_As we that are left to grow old._

_Age shall not weary them,_

_Nor the years condemn._

 

_At the going down of the sun, and in the morning_

_We Will Remember Them_

 

It had come as no surprise to anyone that Remembrance Day was important to Steve. He was a military man, through and through, a hero, and one who was always conscientious to thank others for their service, for no other reason than that it was the right thing to do.

 

He always put duty first, and that came as no surprise to anyone. It would have been comprehensively instilled in him, from the very beginning; perhaps a symptom of his time, perhaps simply a sign of an intrinsically good man. It /had/ been surprising, then, when, upon Director Fury intimating that they would be required for publicity duties on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, Steve Rogers had said no.

 

There was no fuss about it, no big kerfuffle or fireworks of any kind, just the calm equanimity of Captain Steven Rogers standing up for what he felt was right.

 

No, it was not a day off for anyone else in the country, anyone else in the world, that much was true. What it was, was important. What it was, was a chance to remember.

 

Everyone had something to remember, and Steve Rogers more than most. He had a whole world living in his memories, and ghosts which had never aged; which never would. He knew, though, that the rest of his team had people they had lost, things that this day would mean to them, whether or not they would ever admit it, and to be frank, he had had his fill of being a dancing monkey.

 

He had served; he had paid the price. He had as much right to thanks for his service as the others, those who would be thanked across the country, who would parade, who would stand up, shoulder to shoulder, but remembering those who should have stood between them. This was a day when he wanted to be a man, not a hero, not an icon. This was the day when he had a right to leave the armour, and the shield, to don the uniform he had never had a real chance to wear; the uniform which blended in with every other soldier in uniform. The uniform he was entitled to.

 

Fury had not been sure what to make of Steve Rogers disobeying a direct order, and so, after a momentary consideration – which for Fury was practically a lifetime – and with the slightest hint of what might have been a smile on his face, he had capitulated, and the Avengers had a day off.

 

 

***

 

It had not taken long to explain the concept to Thor, and as with so many things, he had embraced it wholeheartedly. It seemed fitting to him that the brave warriors who fought and died for the sake of things they believed in strongly enough, or at the behest of those who commanded them, motivated by fear of loss, whether that be of their own lives if they failed, or the lives of those they cared about, the land they cared about, the traditions they cherished.

 

He had, in his youth, believed that might was right, as the mortals might have put it. He courted war, eager to prove his strength, chasing glory which would be won through the blood of his enemies, the enemy of his father, the enemies of Asgard. He had slain many, and thought himself a greater man for it, until he had been taught what truly mattered.

 

There were many deaths he wished he could take back, a matter of seconds in youthful foolishness, but there were still more where he recognised, simply, that his opponents had been worthy, and that he owed them the respect of honouring their deaths. It had seemed, for a long time, like defeat was the end of everything, the loss of all worth, all honour and respect... but of course, there had been times when he himself had been defeated – in battles of word, or thought, and occasionally he had crossed swords and come off worse. He had to admit that even Doctor Banner was a worthy opponent.

 

It was alien, at first, the thought that those he had defeated were deserving of his respect, but it was true, at the very least, that what the warriors of his culture had feared, more than anything, was being forgotten. Becoming anonymous. Dying alone. That was why they had skalds to compose epic sagas which recorded mighty deeds and would be told and retold to cement their value.

 

If they were deserving of his respect, then, they were deserving of his memory, and it was a time to mourn for what had been lost, whether by his hand, or another. And if he thought of his brother when he glanced at the red flower blooming across his chest, well, nobody needed to know that.

 

 

***

 

 

Natasha hated Remembrance Day. Well, perhaps that was not completely true, but it complicated things for her.

 

Before all of this, before New York, before the Avengers, before SHIELD... everything had been simple. She had adhered to the code, and the code meant you didn't mourn; you did not remember.

 

The world was spun from lies and deceit, and loyalty always had its price. There was no guarantee of survival, no way out. Once you were in, you were in, and death was the only end which lay ahead. Every operation cost lives, whether innocent, or less so, and she did not care, could not afford to care. There was no such thing as a friendship, or a partnership. There was only expediency. There had been times when it had been useful to have someone along on a job with her, and all too often, she had seen them die. More than once, it had been at her own hand.

 

For her, remembering meant the weight of the souls on her shoulders, the red in her ledger, weighed heavier than usual. She was not a soldier, had never been a soldier, but she knew carnage, she knew death, and loss, and war.

 

These days, perhaps, things were changing, but this was a new life, and anything which threatened to drag up a past she had locked away was something she tried to avoid like the plague, knowing that it would not take much for the ghosts to haunt her dreams. She had been looking forward to the distraction of public appearances, and the news that they had been cancelled sent her to the gym for the rest of the day in frustration, trying to overcome the knot of fear which was starting to tighten in her stomach.

 

Natasha Romanoff was never afraid; Natasha Romanoff never cried; Natasha Romanoff would complete the job, whatever the cost.

 

She certainly did not mourn. But she would always remember.

 

 

***

 

Clint had always shared much the same opinion as Natasha on the occasion, and often spent it at the range, shooting until his fingers bled, or until Coulson dragged him away. On more than one occasion, it had been both. He did the job in front of him, but it was no secret that the job left you rotten at the core.

 

It had been Coulson who had changed that, although Clint would certainly never tell him so.

 

He had never understood why Coulson placed so much importance on something which should have meant nothing to people like them; why all of SHIELD did it, or most of them, at least. Experienced field agents Clint had come to respect all wore the poppy, a blaze of red against their uniforms, or in Coulson's case, his suit, for a week before. It was about soldiers, and they weren't soldiers.

 

He had tried to ask Coulson about it once, and the man had only smiled, sadly, and said nothing. Eventually, in frustration, Clint left the subject alone.

 

Then something had happened which had given him a whole new perspective on the idea.

 

Coulson was dead.

 

The one man he had trusted in SHIELD, more than any other, the man he had... respected. Love was not something he felt. There was no point in it; it could never be real. But he had respected Coulson.

 

He had never seen the body, there had never been a funeral. Nothing had been said. All he knew was what Fury had said on the helicarrier; what the others had told him.

 

November had come around, and he was still withdrawn, still refusing to talk to people for the most part, especially those who were assigned to be his handler on missions. He ignored them, he did his job, got in, and out, and closed himself off.

 

He had tried to walk away when Sitwell had approached him, not wanting the knife in his heart he knew would come from talking to someone who had known Coulson so well, been so close to him, worked so well with him, but he had not been able to ignore the yell of his name loud enough that half the heads in the hangar swung round to him.

 

In the end, though, he had been left confused. There had been no attempt to make him talk, no orders to report to the psych department, and he had not been 'retired' from active duty.

 

Instead, Sitwell had pressed one of the fragile paper flowers into his hand, careful not to jab him with the pin, and said one word, 'Remember'.

 

That was when it had clicked.

 

Most of SHIELD weren't like him and Nat. They were normal people, for the most part, doing an extraordinary job. They all served their country, even if it was not in the conventional military, the police, some civic service which people would recognise immediately. They were entitled to this day, too, and they lost comrades, just the same as every other force. They protected the world, the nation, and they paid the price. They remembered those they had lost. They were entitled. That meant Coulson was entitled too.

 

That year, for the first time, Clint had worn the badge of red on his chest, and he had felt proud of it, for all that every part of him still seemed to ache where the man in the black suit had left a void in his heart.

 

When Coulson had come back, Clint had thrown it at him, yelling, blaming him, angry, and terrified somehow that this was not real, that the man he had always trusted not to leave him would be the same as everyone else he had let in.

 

It had taken them time to resolve that, and if part of the resolution had been Coulson kissing Clint senseless in a last-ditch attempt to shut him up, no one needed to know.

 

Things had been decidedly calmer after that, and they had what could almost pass for a healthy relationship.

 

When it had next come round, they had bought their poppies together, and that was when Clint learned the other half of what it meant to them.

 

For Coulson, at least, the poppy was not only a symbol of the friends he had lost; the junior agents who had disobeyed, or who he had not adequately protected, who were forever on a list engraved on his heart; but also for his enemies.

 

/That/ hadn't made sense. They had been enemies, and now they were dead and gone. The world was better off without them. They didn't need to be remembered as anything more than a statistic, right? I mean, the kill count was a badge of honour, especially when it came to a sniper, but... apparently Coulson disagreed.

 

“What you're forgetting, Clint,” he explained quietly, “is that they aren't just numbers. For every number, there was another body, another life. When the war is over, the soldiers are the same. They fought the same battles, they faced the same conditions, they paid the same price, whether they won or lost. Each enemy we kill hurts the enemy like losing one of our own does to us. Some of them would have had families, and there are more people than we could ever imagine who are affected by what we do. We kill people like us, and the only thing that keeps us alive when they die is the fact that, that time, we were better than them. One day someone will come along, who is better than us.”

 

That had elicited a growl from the sniper, and his grip on his bow had tightened, knuckles whitening.

 

Coulson took a minute to soothe him, realising that that remark had perhaps bitten a little too close to the bone.

 

“So I remember my friends, and I remember my enemies. There might not be anyone else to remember them, and no matter what, they still deserve that respect.”

 

If that was what it meant, then Clint certainly wasn't sure he wanted to wear it again... but they had bought them together, and when Coulson's fingers had pinned it firmly to his uniform, he didn't remove it.

 

When the time came, he did remember. It was only right, after all.

 

 

***

 

Bruce hated it. It was the one time of year when he could not avoid everything he feared, everything he hated. There were uniforms everywhere: Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, cadet forces and other uniformed organisations. They gave him panic attacks, nightmares, flashbacks, and he would have to fight for control, fight for breath, fight not to give any sign of weakness, and to keep the other guy in. He couldn't have any more innocent deaths on his conscience. They may have worn the same uniform as those who hurt him, they may have supposedly shared a common cause, a common set of ideals, but these men and women did not mean him harm. The least he could do, if he could not share the sombre grief which seemed to choke him, was to leave them in peace to remember.

 

Even before everything that had happened, he had never been comfortable with the idea.

 

He certainly didn't have anything against soldiers, he admired them, and the price they paid, but it felt like it was somehow endorsing the war he could never believe in to wear the symbol of those it had taken from them, to demonstrate solidarity with only one side, and ally himself with what they were fighting for. He respected soldiers, but he did not, could not ever support violence. Wearing the poppy seemed to somehow imply that only the casualties of one side were worthy of remembering, because of course, they had died fighting for the right, never mind that history was written by the victors, and that ordinary soldiers were often very different from those who preached the ideals which were the cause of war in the first place.

 

There hadn't seemed to be any alternative, a way to support those who had been injured, who had lost everything in the name of the country they fought for, and yet not endorse the war itself, until he had discovered the white poppies.

 

The money raised through the sales of white poppies went towards conflict resolution, and work towards peace. He knew it was a Christian organisation, and to be fair, he had never had much faith in the church, but this seemed an exception worth making. There was no way that one organisation would ever be able to stop war, to prevent it entirely, but the thought that there might be hope, that there was light in the darkness, and people who shared his view that war, all war, was evil, regardless of which side was which was enough.

 

So those around him wore red, and remembered comrades they had lost, and Bruce wore white, mourning in dignified silence for all of the lives which had paid the ever rising cost of war down the ages, the innocent lives he himself had taken, and prayed to a god he did not believe in for peace, for positive change.

 

 

***

 

Tony had been the last person Steve would have expected to care about what they were doing on Remembrance. He wouldn't have been at all surprised if the man had gone on ahead with the publicity arrangements, or if he had held a party. Rather, when Steve had gone to break the news to him, Tony had nodded, his mouth set in an expression Steve didn't quite recognise, and nodded in what might have been appreciation.

 

What Steve had forgotten, what everyone tended to forget, was that Tony had lived through the period Steve had missed, that he had been the son of a man obsessed with a fallen soldier, who had never been able to quite let go of the life he had lived during the war, and the man he had been then.

 

While Steve remembered the men he had served with, and the few women who had been there – Peggy was always stark at the front of his mind – Tony knew what they had been like as they aged. He remembered the stories they had told him, and from those stories had probably learned more about Steve than even Steve realised he knew.

 

It was impossible to grow up surrounded by veterans and remain ignorant of the terrible price they had paid for the country, of what war had cost, and so it was that he had always paid close attention when there were conflict details on the news on TV. He kept track of the death count, and sent wreaths anonymously to the families of the fallen. He made donations to charities which supported veterans on their return home, and tried to offer medical care to those injured in the line of duty.

 

After his 'rebirth', as he liked to think of it, when he thought of it at all, his 'second chance', he had only become more conscientious about it. He didn't know why – perhaps it was some desperate attempt to redeem himself from all of the deaths he had caused, from all the destruction he had enabled, and tacitly endorsed.

 

He still hated the day, hated being forced to confront emotions again when it was still territory he was not comfortable negotiating.

 

He hated remembering.

 

Remembering was something his father had done, obsessively. Remembering was what had replaced Tony in Howard's heart.

 

He did what he had always done, and locked himself in his workshop, losing himself in work, in music which drowned out all thought of anything but the circuits, the calculations anything but memories which would swamp him if he gave them even an inch of ground, but bright on the chest of his shirt was the fragile flower of paper, and, try as he might, running over and over in his head, like a mantra, went the names of the commandos, the men and women he had called Aunt and Uncle when he had been too young to know better, the men and women who had loved him in their own damaged way. The closest to a family he had ever really known, till now.

 

 

***

 

If there was any day of the year that Steve Rogers wanted to himself, it was this one.

 

It was a day dedicated to those who had served the country, who had laid down their lives for it, and he was one of them, and so was everyone he had known. Most people could give their life only once, but he had not been that lucky. He had laid it down already, and now he laid it down again, and again, in the knowledge that there would always be another time, another demand, there would always be more that his country would ask of him. There would be another call, and he would step forward and answer it, never taking for granted the virtue that that ability was finally his, and that it had been dearly bought.

 

He was Captain America.

 

Beneath that uniform, though, was Steve Rogers. A Captain of the US Army in the Second World War, a man out of time, who had lost everything he had once believed was certain, and held tight to.

 

Today was a day about Steve Rogers. A day about Peggy Carter, and Bucky Barnes. A day about the Howling Commandos, whose names and faces were still as clear as day in his mind. A day about Howard Stark and the countless multitude he had spoken to, blending all into one as he had been whisked from place to place, performance to performance.

 

Of course, the conflicts hadn't ceased when he had been asleep.

 

He was starting to lose faith in a 'war to end all wars'. It seemed that the only way peace was assured was an Armageddon which simply left no one left to fight, and nothing left to war over.

 

This was the time that awareness was raised again, and the living had plenty to thank them for their service – although he knew first hand that it never got tired, that it would never be enough, that there were still those who preferred abuse to gratitude when it came to serving personnel – but the dead often remained forgotten, especially those of an era he could identify with.

 

And so he remembered the dead.

 

There were too many for him to thank them all, and that thought alone made his heart cold, and so he simply sat and remembered. He focussed on, first, each of the men he had known, and, of course, the woman who had made him who he was. Once he had thought of each of them, checked that he could still recall every detail, he simply stood at attention, gazing over the gently rolling landscape, thick with uniform memorials, and remembered.

 

It was said that history would always repeat itself, and that the lessons for the future could only be found from the past. It seemed to him that this was a lesson that humanity would never learn. But there was always hope, so long as people remembered.

 

He had no patience for those who attempted to use the occasion for point scoring, to win support for their cause with crocodile tears and public shows of grief for something they could never understand, never imagine. That was why he stood, and joined in the dignified grief of those who truly knew the horrors of war, and thought of the unknown, the faceless, the unrecognised heroes lost in the mists of time. There were those who had him to remember them, but there were numberless fallen who had no one, and he had time enough that they would never be forgotten, that their sacrifice would never go unrecognised.

 

_At the going down of the sun,_

_And in the morning_

 

_We Will Remember Them_

**Author's Note:**

> Whilst I am aware that the Avengers are American in terms of their location, I know little about the American traditions surrounding the Armed Forces. I've managed to glean some information, about key locations, and Veterans' Day, but this is using the British traditions and applying them in the Avengers universe in a gesture of remembrance. It may be fictional, there may be inaccuracies in it, but I hope from this it's possible to take a moment of quiet to remember. It's that which is important, after all. 
> 
> In Britain, the Royal British Legion sells poppies which people wear, pinned to their coats and bags, to raise money to support wounded veterans, and the families of the fallen. They are a charitable organisation, and the poppies are made by disabled veterans. The most common ones are paper, but there are also enamel pin badges, and a variety of sizes. Wreaths of poppies are a frequent sight, and are present at war memorials year round. The poppy symbol originated in the First World War.
> 
> Remembrance Day is the 11th of November, and at 11:00, two minutes' silence are observed. This much, at least, is the same as Veterans day. Remembrance Sunday is the second Sunday in November, or the one closest to Remembrance Day.


End file.
